Biomimicked Polymer Surfaces Exhibiting Superhydrophobic and Anti-Reflective Properties

Mattaparthi, S and Sharma, Chandra Shekhar (2013) Biomimicked Polymer Surfaces Exhibiting Superhydrophobic and Anti-Reflective Properties. Masters thesis, Indian Institute of Technology, Hyderabad.

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Abstract

Materials, objects and processes found in nature functions from macro-scale to the nanoscale. Bio-inspiration or biomimetics is a tool to mimic these natural objects to develop functional materials which provide desired properties. There are a large number of examples found in nature such as plants, bacteria, land animals, aquatic animals and insects which provide an inspiration to mimic some structural and functional properties owned by them. For example some plant leaves and flower petals like lotus leaf, rice leaf, taro leaf and rose petal are well known for their superhydrophobic and self-cleaning properties due to the multiscale structural patterns present on their surfaces. This self-cleaning phenomenon also known as “Lotus effect” is due to high contact angle and low contact angle hysteresis. India canna is a common garden plant however structural properties of its various parts such as petal, leaf and seedpod have not been studied in literature. In this work, we studied the super hydrophobic nature of India canna plant. In case of seedpod, it is the high aspect ratio multiscale structures that cause the superhydrophobicity however interestingly in case of leaf and petal, it is low aspect ratio bump like structures for similar behaviour. We mimicked these structural patterns into a number of polymers like PDMS and an organic (resorcinol formaldehyde) gel and found that these biomimicked polymer surfaces also exhibit superhydrophobic property. To add the novelty, polymer surfaces with these multiscale surface patterns has also been studied for their antireflective properties with an inspiration from the moth eye structure. The facile fabrication of superhydrophobic as well as antireflective polymer surfaces by a low cost and simple biomimicking route opens the possibilities of using such surfaces for a wide variety of engineering applications including energy storage devices.

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